Back again.

The rain didn't exactly stop, but it was less heavy than before. I caught my bus, then connected to the Dover-bound train. (It is approximately 2 mins between every stop, so I figured I can actually reach SP in 20 min. Not bad when you think I used to take 20 min to reach SHSS too, and SHSS was soooooooo much nearer back then.)

ANYWAY, I got off at the nice MRT station, and it immediately hit me like déjà vu: September 2003 - meeting WQ with Cheryl before the main entrance...asking the guard for directions...walking down the slope and down the stairs...making the loooooong journey to the Concourse near the School Of Chemical & Life Sciences. Heck, I even passed the exact table we sat at when Mr Wong treated us at McDonald's before the quiz.

Only difference was that I wasn't meant to enter the foodcourt. I had to detour round to find the concourse entrance. All this while holding my open umbrella, and trying to keep track of the file containing all my documents. The file that I've never used before. The file that states plainly on the cover: ST. HILDA'S PRIMARY SCHOOL CHILDREN'S DAY 1999

Needless to say, I did not have enough time to get another file. So anyway, I climbed the stairs and followed the arrows that led to this REALLY BIG hall, which was unclearly separated into different stations. I managed the first station all right, then the girl told me to proceed to the station behind and for some reason I assumed it was the station behind me (for people who didn't do pre-enrolment, which I most certainly did) instead of the station behind her.

That cleared up, I entered this part of the hall where there were clearly two stations. The queue numbers were different from the one I had at the first station so I had no idea what to do. I sat down at one of the chairs and pretended to be neatly arranging my documents. Then I looked up and realised there was this guy standing by a queue number-printer in the middle of the two stations. I got up and self-consciously went to get the number. Went back to my seat. Guy came along a few seconds later and asked if I had gone to the station in front of me already. I said no. He said I had to go there first before taking the queue number from the other station. I looked ahead and realised there was a queue number-printer at this station, standing all alone in a corner so I had missed it. Even more self-consciously returned the darned queue number and went to take a new one.

After a short wait, I got called to the station, booth no. 2. There were two girls on either side of me. I heard the lady attending the girl on the right puzzling something about her documents for Media & Comm. Ooh, a course mate! Then the lady attending the girl on the left also mentioned something about the girl being admitted to DMC. Ooh, another course mate! I was pretty surprised actually, despite already knowing today's registration was mainly for School Of Business students. I mean, DMC has by far the least number of students in that school.

But whatever. Turns out you only need ONE copy of your birth certificate, and you don't even need to bring the original copies of your 'O' Level results and birth cert. There was a short delay because of some confusion from my pre-enrolment data, then I was asked to FINALLY get a queue number from the other station. Went up to the guy and took the number without looking at him. *embarrassed*

That queue was even shorter. I sat down to try and arrange my documents, but before doing so I looked up, and my number was flashing already. Got up grudgingly (since I still had my documents spilling out of my hands) and went to take my picture for my SP student pass. Then I waited patiently while the high-tech printer issued my card. The girl handed it to me; it was still pretty hot, having just been printed. Can't say I really like the picture but who on earth cares.

Proceeded to the next station, where I handed the guy there my online payment printout, and promptly was given my plastic cardholder and red lanyard.

Let's digress momentarily. One of the obvious signs that today's enrolment was mostly for Business students was the availability of the lanyards - because Business lanyards are red (with "Singapore Polytechnic" running down the material in yellow), and I only saw red ones on the table. Life Sciences are yellow. Engineering is black. I think IT's also red but we'll leave that to Edwin to confirm! And Design is...PURPLE!!! ARGH!!! I want to quit Business and join Design!!!!

Haha. Back to the main point.

So I'm, like, yay! Everything's done! Time to go h --

And then I was made to proceed to Level 2 or 3 of the building. I entered this room that had an automated powerpoint presentation playing. It was telling us what ways we could use to store our projects, namely flash drives, CD-RWs and Yahoo! Mail (which was pretty pointless 'cos I've had my account for 7 years). The only thing interesting about that presentation was the recorded voice that went with it. It's a classic example of reading with a fake expression. I nearly laughed, then contrived to pay attention.

That done, I was all ready to zoom off to the MRT...BUT I stumbled upon another road block. Had to enter the next room with a group of freshmen like me - I think all the girls in the group were from DMC actually - where we were introduced to the Student's Union and their activities and later given registration forms to sign up for their FOP camps. Was practically obliged to do so 'cos who fills in all their particulars and leaves the gist of the form - i.e. "tick the programmes you are interested to join"- blank??? Thankfully the girl who briefed us about the camps (a 2nd-year DMC student, coincidentally) said the day's quota for camp participants had been reached so it was very unlikely we would get a spot.

I decided not to celebrate that outright and went out of the room with the girls (we somehow lost the boys on the way). The next room contained a short passage with black cloth for walls and bright red lights...needless to say we were all not very sure of what lay beyond the passage. Turned out it was just a normal brightly-lit room, like the one before. This was for the Community Service & Cultural Club. We sat round again and someone came again to tell us all about their camps. At some point the guy talking to us asked if he could speak in Chinese instead.

I nearly freaked out.

BUT most of what he said was "wo men de camp...ta me de camp"...so I didn't freak out in the end. And when one of the girls (this time there were 4, including me, left) said she'd already signed up for the previous camps, the guy said the student union had reached their quota, but their club hadn't, so we could definitely get a place.

ARGH!!!!

Once again was practically obliged to sign up for a programme. Chose the one-day one instead of the dunno-how-many-days-stuck-in-SP one. My main idea was to be better orientated with the school, but I didn't realise - until too late - that my one-day programme was being held at Sentosa. Anyway, I paid the $6 and left...

...only to end up in another room, this one advertising for the sports club. The guy speaking to us didn't give us the application forms, so while two of the girls proceeded to the counter to fill in their forms, another girl and I sneaked out...

...only to find ourselves being ushered to the NEXT room, which had an entranceway much like the community service club. Getting very weary, we found ourselves under the bright lights again only to be told this room was for the current affairs and debating club, which our guide assured us did not do much of debating. Which is weird, but never mind. She proceeded to tell us about their programmes, and somehow or other we managed to get away without agreeing to anything.

To my utter relief, right beside the door was the staircase. As we walked down to the first floor from the third, the girl and I talked a little and traded comments that we hoped that was the end of all the camps.

Then I was back in the foodcourt again. One of the guides may have told me to proceed to level 2, but I decided to pretend I didn't hear anything and sneaked round the nearest pillar to make a quick getaway. :P

After that was the looooong walk back to the MRT and subsequently home.

Finally.

Jessica wrote home at 11:45 pm

Jessica wrote home at 3:17 pm

Jessica wrote home at 8:38 pm

Jessica has something to say about what has been going through her head the past few days, which has left her in no mood to blog:

"#$%^&*#$^&*%$#&*&%$^$%&%^%$#!!!"

Thank you for your time. Goodbye.

No, really. She is in a very very bad mood because of a lot of things, the most aggravating being:

1) Finding out she didn't miss the cut-off point for her first-choice course, but since MOE has a personal vendetta against her, they decided to bump her off and pick someone else instead. And she had to find that out after appeals had closed. Yippee. Welcome to my life.

2) Having to get like five thousand documents and things done for enrolment day (whichever day that may be), the most troublesome being that stupid medical checkup where this stupid man who came in AFTER me thought he was there first and demanded to get his check-up before me. And the receptionist actually agreed to that (why does everyone have something against me?!?!), before being told off by my mother, who was overheard by said stupid man who confronted her. If I hadn't already been inside the doctor's office by then.........he better thank his lucky stars.

3) After being told to return on Thursday (that is, yesterday) to collect my medical report (even though the Enrolment Guide plainly states that the report will be sent straight to SP from the clinic), I had to drag myself to Shenton Way...only to be told the report would be sent to SP!!! And a few hours later, when I had finally let off my indignation by browsing around Bugis...the receptionist called to tell me the exact same thing. And by that time it was already past 2 p.m.!!!

4) Watching the match last night. Watching Chelsea play makes me want to hurl something at the TV, I tell you. Luckily the only thing I had with me last night was a tuna bun.

End of ranting. Now you see why I need anger management???

Now on to happier things.

(tries desperately to think of a happy thing)

Erm...yes. After my sister's birthday lunch on Tuesday, I went to Orchard to buy *something*. So fun shopping for it (even though I already knew what I was supposed to get!). Haha. Speaking of my sister's birthday lunch, for some reason the buffet place didn't bring out white wine that day. So I settled for two glasses of red. *evil grin* Not that it had any effect on me, considering I was already half-asleep in the first place.

I not only got through chapter 19x (oh by the way, I got cheated. I didn't know it was possible to kill Kishuna...which means I restarted like three hunded times for nothing) and moved on to chapter 20 (instead of 19xx...*sniff*), which was even more annoying because the chapter is amazingly easy (apparently Lyn can kill BOTH bosses in that level without taking any damage!) - just that I couldn't find a way to recruit Legault and get the member card at the same time. For like six thousand times I managed to steal the card but missed getting to Legault by one round. Then just as I was going to give up, I somehow managed it. Wow.

Anyway, whilst still waiting for Fire Emblem 2 to arrive (actually I realised May 23rd is a national holiday and ONLY the start of orientation week...so I should have enough time to play then. Just the question of whether I am willing to spend so much money...), I have been trying my hand at a few GBA games (don't ask me how...*evil laughter*) to see if there's anything more interesting to get instead. The games are:

1) Golden Sun: Colours are so pretty on the GBA. But there's so much pointless dialogue!!! And the stupid mountain where the main characters live on has soooooo many winding trails that it's a wonder I could find my way around. I thought the part where the big boulder fell and broke the jetty, thereby causing the people on top to fall into the river and get washed away...that was pretty sad. Then I had to get help but according to the storyline, I had to stumble upon a secret conversation and get my memory wiped out. Next thing I (the real me) know, the game shifts to 3 years later and villagers are still asking me whether I feel guilty about not being in time to save those people...other than that, I think the music's nice but the fighting scenes remind me too much of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, and I hated that GBC game.

2) Harvest Moon: Friends Of Mineral Town: Well, there are certainly like ten thousand better things to do here than on Harvest Moon 2 (which Sam still hasn't returned!! :P ). Problem is that equals a freaking big map and after wandering around like half the map, it was 8 p.m. (in the game), I was stuck on the mountain, and I didn't have any clue how to get home.

3) Castlevania: Aria Of Sorrow: This is apparently supposed to be a great game, so I was wondering how much the Castlevania series has evolved from when all you had to do was to stab at figures magically formed from wax, and bats and other creatures. Answer? It hasn't evolved at all, except that the wax figures and other creatures are now in colour. Maybe the rest of the game is more interesting, but I couldn't be bothered less after stabbing my twentieth bat and five hundredth wax figure.

4) Kingdom Hearts: Chain Of Memories: It still strikes me as very weird that a Japanese anime character is travelling with Donald Duck and Goofy, and the introduction of the game was NOT clear at all. So I spent my time wandering around the place and swinging my big key about aimlessly. The battles are pretty fun though; at least you get to move around and stab (with your key) anywhere you like. Except there are too many battles.

5) Final Fantasy Tactics Advance: Was really looking forward to playing this, since I couldn't decide between buying it and Fire Emblem last year. I like the story - starts out in a normal town, where the new kid (me) and another kid gets bullied, and the class head stands up for us. Right after that we somehow become friends, the "another kid" buys a book about magic and we all come to my house to check it out. Then in the middle of the night I get transported to another dimension in which exists the magic creatures featured in the above book. Cool, eh, if it happened to you? The battle style is turn-based, like FE, but the view of the map is not from above so it's very hard to see where to place your character in order to strike your enemy. Not to mention the battle stats are confusing, there is no nice battle animation like in FE...and your enemies, like some of the clan you fight with...are weird creatures. I don't like fantasy creatures! Oh, and the graphics and music are just as nice as Golden Sun's - but I don't see any plot so far...

Gah. Have got to try more games. Am I biased or something? That such supposedly great games can't seem to compare with FE???

I spent the whole day today trying to get through 19x, by the way. And I still haven't succeeded!! Argh. Going to toss my GBA SP out of the window soon. The last two times I played, I was one agonising round away from unlocking the secret chapter. Arrrrrrrrrgggggggghhhh.

This is not good for my blood pressure. And I have that stupid medical check up tomorrow so I should not be worked up right now. Do they even check your blood pressure? I mean, why would they need to check a 17-year-old's blood pressure...?

ANYWAY. Maybe the doctor will just find out I'm mentally deranged or something, so SP kicks me out before I even set foot into it.

Then I can stay home for the rest of my life trying to get past 19x.

Jessica wrote home at 9:48 pm